


Moving Days

by kishiriaz



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 16:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2316323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kishiriaz/pseuds/kishiriaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Emperor is retiring and taking the primarchs and their families with him. Part 3 of The Retirement AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving Days

After the Imperial wedding and the subsequent announcement that the Emperor was going to retire, the primarchs who had decided to accompany Him had some personal decisions to make.

One afternoon found the primarchs of the III, X, IX and XVI Legions sitting around a large-screened cogitator, accompanied by their daughters. They had gathered to discuss what their home on the retirement world of Imperia would look like.

“As I’ve said, as long as it’s comfortable, I am indifferent to the appearance,” said Horus.

We’ve settled on a duplex”, Ferrus Manus informed Horus. Ferrus had his six-year-old daughter Felicity on his lap. 

“With a shared ground floor,” added Sanguinius. “And,” he smiled at Juliana Lupercal and Felicity in turn, “it’s a log house.” 

He clicked the controller on the cogitator to show another picture. “See? “

“It looks like a toy,” said Juliana.

“It’s pretty,” said Felicity. 

The house was indeed pretty; a gabled, two-and-a-half story log house with a stone chimney and a covered porch around the whole place. In the artist’s conception, it nestled unobtrusively against a backdrop of thick forest.

“Here’s the main floor.” Fulgrim took the controller and advanced a couple of picts. It showed an open floor plan, with a stone fireplace, lacquered wood posts supporting the ceiling, and a big kitchen at one end. “I can’t wait to get cooking and serving meals.”

“Hurrah, cooking!” exclaimed Felicity, who was the greatest fan of Fulgrim’s culinary artistry.  
“When do we move there?” asked Juliana.

“It’s being built right now. It’ll be done by the time we arrive on Imperia,” Horus Lupercal told her.

Elsewhere in the palace, Rogal Dorn and Perturabo were showing a three-dimensional maquette to their daughter, Hestia. The sandy-haired girl stood on a stepstool and leaned over the model, crossing her arms and unconsciously duplicating a pose often struck by both her fathers.

“It looks as if it’s built into the rock,” she observed. “Is it? Really?”

“This boulder is an old volcanic core,” Rogal Dorn told her. “We’re going to open it up and install rooms in it.”

“With explosives?” The little girl’s blue eyes lit up with excitement.

“Absolutely!” Perturabo assured her.

“Super!” she exclaimed, flashing a mouthful of baby teeth. “Is it going to be our very own fortress?”

“Not that we expect to be attacked, but we want it to be defensible,” Perturabo told her.

“First and foremost, though, it’s going to be our home,” Rogal said. “We’ll be staying with your grandfather when we first get to Imperia, because your pater and I are going to be building it ourselves.”

“All by yourself?” Hestia asked.

“No, we’ll need you to supervise,” Perturabo told her. He was smiling.

At the end of the move, the Imperial retirement residence was settled, along with homes for the primarchs. The Lupercal-Manus family moved into their log duplex; Konrad Curze and Corvus Corax both had neo-Victorian houses, and the Dorns worked alongside an army of architects and servitors to build the Stone House. Angron and Lorgar were invited to live in the Imperial Residence, and accepted.

Fulgrim had a moment, as the rest of the family was exploring the house, to stand alone in the kitchen. Furniture was lined up and still covered and the boxes were yet to be unpacked. The ground floor of the Casa Retrata, as they’d dubbed it, was more welcoming than he’d imagined. The kitchen took up a third, divided from the dining and family room areas by a rustic half-wall. The counters were an expensive greyish-brown synthetic. The stove was gas, with a built in grill. The sink was an enormous hollowed-out block of soapstone. Plus, there were all the necessities; a huge dishwasher, trash compactor, and convection oven all hid behind oak panels set under the counters.

He turned as Ferrus Manus came down the stairs and approached him. Ferrus put his silver arms around Fulgrim and asked, “What do you think?”

“I can imagine holidays and anniversaries and birthdays taking place here,” Fulgrim told him. “It’s still new and unfamiliar, but I think it’ll feel like home quickly.”

“Felicity and I have been setting up our rooms. Come on up.”

Fulgrim held Ferrus’s hand and followed him up the staircase running up the left side of the great room. At the top, a carpeted hallway led left and right. To the left were three doors, and in the furthest one Fulgrim could see Felicity taking things out of boxes. To the right was the door to the master bedroom, which was open. 

Ferrus led him in. The room was spacious enough, with tall windows and walls painted a soft greyish-mauve. The bed was already there, on a frame of black wrought iron, with high twisted bedposts from which curtains would be suspended. There was a door leading to their ensuite bathroom. Fulgrim walked around, looking out the front and corner windows at the yard, the road, and the forest that stood across from them. He turned from the window and inspected the master bath, with its huge square tub and double sink.

“I think we need to use that tub tonight,” he said with a smile.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Ferrus commented. He kissed his husband’s cheek. “Come help me make the bed and unpack some of our clothes.”

They stepped out into the bedroom, but before they could remove any sheets and blankets, Felicity appeared in the doorway. “Papa and Da, come see my room.”

They followed their daughter down the hall. Felicity pointed to the walls, which were sky-blue with clouds painted near the ceiling, then to her bed. “I made it with blue sheets because my walls are blue.”

“It looks great, Doodlebug,” Fulgrim told her. “Do you want anything more painted in the sky?”

“A couple of dragons?”

“Not dragons,” Ferrus muttered through a stiff smile.

Fulgrim twigged to Ferrus’s discomfort immediately. “What about balloons, with people riding in baskets under them?”

“No…but a pegasus maybe?”

“I can paint you a pegasus,” Fulgrim assured her.

“I need stars on the wall over my bed,” she said. “And one of Grandpa’s eagles.”

“My word, she’s already promoting Imperial truth,” Ferrus joked.

“Do you have any gold paint?” Fulgrim asked.

On the other side of the wall, Horus was leading Sanguinius by the hand to their bedroom.

 

“Almost there,” Horus said. “No peeking.” Once they were inside the threshold he said, “Now you can look.”  
Sanguinius opened his eyes. “That’s a very strange looking bed,” he said with a smile.

“I took all your complaints about beds, paired them up with what I need out of one, and had this built.”

Sanguinius walked towards it. It was a square bed, large enough for two primarchs, on a raised, stepped platform. The headboard was low and padded, and it curved around one side of the bed. The other side and the foot were open.

Horus walked around it, to show that the headboard wasn’t against the wall. “This way, we can both lean back against the headboard when we’re reading. Since the bed’s on a platform, you can hang your wings over the side without crushing the tips.” He went to the side of the platform and pulled out a drawer. “Storage space built in for our dataslates and cogitators. Here at the foot…” he slid out another panel, “there’s a space for a few bottles of wine and some glasses.

“What do you think?”

Sanguinius stepped up onto the platform, raised his wings, and hopped onto his side of the bed. He sat with his back against the headboard, draping his wings over it, then lay on his side with them supported by the backrest. “I think it might be perfect.” He patted the mattress beside him.

Horus joined him, propping his head up on his fist. “We can adjust the softness of the mattress if we want.”

“You thought of everything.”

“That was the point. This house needs to be everything we always wanted.”

Sanguinius smiled, and raised a hand to Horus’s cheek. “After two centuries of so rarely being by your side, all I want is time with you.”

“Well, if that’s how you feel, I still have the sales receipt, and the bed was quite expensive….”

Sanguinius laughed, and he and Horus came together in a kiss. A moment into it though, Juliana appeared in their doorway and asked, “Daddy? Baba? Uncle Fulgrim wants to know if you want pizza for dinner. Please say yes; he has a stone for the inside of his oven and he really wants to use it.”


End file.
